Karen Koren: My spring shows will be a tour de force

AH, the pleasures of touring. Casablanca: The Gin Joint Cut started the Scottish leg of its tour in Cumbernauld Village Theatre, this week. It’s a lovely little theatre and the local audiences were very responsive, so much so that they gave the cast a standing ovation. There’s nothing quite like touring a successful show – the cast is happy, the crew is happy and the audience is happy.

The other night they were at Falkirk Town Hall, which is a bit of a barn of a place and difficult to make feel intimate. That’s important because the piece is set mainly in Rick’s Café in Morocco. Next, we have three nights in Kirkcaldy at the Adam Smith Centre, a lovely little theatre where, hopefully, the audiences will be just as responsive.

As well as Casablanca I am also setting up three other tours for the spring, the wonderful Murder, Marple and Me, which was sold out for the Festival. It tells the story of the actress Margaret Rutherford, who played Miss Marple in the 50s movies, and explores her relationship with Agatha Christie.

I am also touring a really gritty one-man play called Big Sean, Mikey and Me, which is the true account of Ruaraidh Murray’s youth in Edinburgh. It is a gripping and moving monologue, which deserves to be seen.

Finally, another sold-out show from the Festival, The Agony and Ecstacy of Steve Jobs, which did so well at the Gilded Balloon with the talented Grant O’Rourke delivering the American writer Mike Daisey’s monologue. It is a remarkable and almost frighteningly timely piece of work about how Apple’s beautifully designed pieces of electronic kit are produced, mainly in the new Chinese mega-city of Shenzhen.

All of these productions deserve to run and run and hopefully with my help they will.